Monday, December 22, 2014

They say time flies when you’re having fun — which is presumably why this year has felt like the flight equivalent of an osmium-filled killer whale nailed to the bottom of the Mariana Trench with Eurotunnel drill bits.

(These same people also say that the years go by quicker the older you get, but I don’t see things balancing out on the Lost Teeth & Hair vs Fun front).

Time!

How does it all work?

It only remains for me to wish followers new and old a heartfelt (actually, my heart is probably next after the teeth and hair, now I think of it) festive wassail before I pack up my writing gear for 2014 and make merry with the figgeridiggeridoo.

2015 promises to be a year of conflict and consequence — all post-Reaper business as usual I suppose but I can’t help feeling that the hats & regalia will be a little disappointing if this year’s feeble Christmas lights are anything to go by.

We shall see.

Back in 2015 to pig out on the freshness of a raw, sub-zero January...

Thursday, December 18, 2014

One by one, the elves returned to their igloos to rest their weary heads.

The moon followed Santa across the horizon — and the North Pole fell silent.

The writer leaned back on his chair, irritated that a whimsical festive story about Santa’s abandoned pet trout had become embroiled in evident shittiness after only three lines.

The whole trout thing was a masterstroke, a flash of inspiration, but something about ‘returning TO their igloos TO rest their weary heads’ annoyed him.

And in any case, if this was to be a story about an abandoned pet trout, looking on forlornly as Santa disappears, and the elves depart for their beds, then where — in THE NORTH POLE — would a trout call home?

Any pond or stream or river would be frozen over.

“Perhaps,” mused the writer, ready to edit all he’d written so far, “perhaps the fish is frozen in ice, and therefore trapped in addition to being abandoned. It’s certainly a cool dynamic.”

But the rules of fiction are harsh and unyielding. Any fish in that predicament would be dead without the aid of magic or some kind of thermally heated all-body sock.

One by one, the elves bedded down in their igloos, snug and snoozy after weeks of toil.

(The elves never featured much in the original vision of the story, but this line infuses them with such character that the scope may be on for a standalone elf-themed mini-series after the trout story is finished.) But Santa’s trout was filled with sorrow.

(BAM!)

Sure, there was now plenty of explaining to do, but the writer felt content with the precocity of his edits and poured himself a pint of coffee.

As he stirred the brew, images formed in his brain, as if beamed onto a cinema screen. Was this a potential CGI family Christmas blockbuster movie in the making?

“So beautifully rendered you can see every fibre of the trout’s technicolour sock.”New York Times???

Now, the writer had the makings of a plot to rival Finding Nemo. This was no longer some run-of-the-mill weepie about an abandoned fish who reconnects with its milieu: here was a fish on the run from a vile, sheep-eating demon whose lust for flossing with the hair of its victims knew no bounds.

Finny (because that’s the name of the trout: eureka!) flapped his fins as the demon unravelled his sock.

A grin played on the writer’s face like the All Blacks stomping over the Twickenham turf. Here was an idea that could run away with itself.

The coffee cooled in its cup as words flew onto the writer’s page. The trout’s plight, the demon’s surprise arrival, the elves’ mutinous sublot: all was here, and more.

For days, weeks, months, years, decades, the writer wrote, turning out quadriplegic trilogy after nintupletic heptapentathingummaserial. He tapped every emotion, renewed every possible plot, sent shares in anything trout-related SCREAMING with every new release.

But in spite of their dreams, all writers are mortal, and one day the writer awoke to find himself dead.

He stood at his writing lecturn with pen in hand, another pulse-pounding Finny spectacular poised to leap from brain to nib to parchment, when an angel grabbed him full on round the neck and barked, “you shoulda been here in 2006 with influenza, pal, but this writing bug has been keeping you alive better’n vitamins, steroids and viagra. But it’s time to go, now. Lemme take your arm and flap you up to Heaven.”

A look of incredulity rippled over the writer’s face like a day old bowl of custard on the Orient Express. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Monday, December 8, 2014

With the exception of iTunes, today's computer progs and apps have fewer seams than a voodoo doll stitched by a frugal witch.

Gone are the days of DOS commands to rival a chapter from War and Peace.

Instead, we have blissful instantaneousness of a kind only dreamt about by porn film directors in the flopdown moments between key shoots.

What a shame our newfound app-titude for user friendliness can't yet be applied to Christmas.

Please, Lords of MisYule, get your shit together and deliver me the perfect Figgy Pudding and Fully Operational Fairy Light Set combeau.

I want all the flavour of a firm, rich pudding AND no fiddling about with piddly light bulbs, HERE, NOW, on the same festive plate — along with a trained squirrel to write out all of my Christmas cards and an internet of things plugged in to Noddy Holder's bonhomie glands.

That!

I want THAT!

I guess what I really want is for Christmas to be like it was when I was a kid.

Back then, everything was laid on, and just happened, from Santa arriving dead on schedule (and looking uncannily like my Dad) to that surreal “New Hamster For Old” offer my Mum discovered when Fluffcheeks choked on a Malteser from the advent calendar.

Adult Christmases are just SHIT.

Organising everything is like a high-stress carb-busting de-tox workout — of DOOM.

And the kids these days are so fucking ungrateful it's untrue.

I'm tempted to forgo the selection boxes and annuals this year in favour of miniature air pistols and a mash-up of famous TV and film suicides uploaded to their iPods, the bastards.

It's been a while since I feigned constipation and earned a luxury pamper day, and if truth be told, I love all the fuss and palaver.

Christmas isn't just about getting shedloads of presents.

It's great to receive, but the best part is giving, saying THANKS.

The great pity in this world is that precisely the same people who have no-one to receive gifts from are also likely to be those with no-one for whom to buy them.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Leaves have remained fixed to trees like summer-lovin’ larvae had glued them in place with squirty stuff from their backsides, and all shades of green have hung on to their greeniness despite the mix n’ match yellow and brown allure of every womens’ fashion catalogue from Next to Clad-a-Trollop.

But now, Winter’s gloves are off.

Or on.

Hmm, not sure here.

All I know is, the Autumn burlesque is over, and Winter has cast aside its feather, the better to goose our eyeballs with its bleak and barren genitals.

It makes sense for this to happen right now (uhm, yeah, Whirl — like you have a choice).

The run-up to Christmas wouldn’t be the same without a little bleakness. Or rawness. Or darkness. Or misery.

It’s not bad right now compared to (say) 2009 or (say again) 1980, but 24 days from now, when the bleakness and rawness and darkness and misery has really set in (along with even cheesier adverts and the zillion bugle fanfare for the New Year sales), I’ll be more than ready for my roaring fire, my port and Stilton, and my inflatable Noddy Holder.